Indy is in a 'pedestrian safety crisis.' Can a Vision Zero traffic safety plan save lives?

Hundreds of people have told Connie Szabo Schmucker, advocacy director at Bicycle Garage Indy and 30-year bike advocate, that they feel unsafe crossing the intersection of 86th Street and the Monon Trail.

There's a clear reason why: people get hit when they try to cross. In 2021, Szabo Schmuker’s coworker, Frank Radaker, was killed on his bike crossing at 86th Street.

His fatality was one of 323 Central Indiana bicyclist or pedestrian crashes that year — 44 of which were deadly.

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It's a problem that's only increased in the years since. By Schmucker's count, at least three pedestrians have been hit crossing the 86th Street intersection this year.

Indianapolis politicians and pedestrian safety advocates want to fix the problem by aligning behind Vision Zero, a way of looking at city planning that seeks to completely eliminate traffic fatalities and major injuries.

John Barth, an Indianapolis City-County Council member representing parts of the north side, is co-authoring a Vision Zero proposal.

“I frequently get outreach from constituents who are concerned about reckless driving, wanting to know what else I can do to protect them and their families in their neighborhoods,” Barth said. “I never get people reaching out to me saying ‘How can you make sure I can drive faster?’”

A Vision Zero plan has been on the table for nearly a decade. Now, several city-county council members plan to present a proposal in July and the city has sent out a request for proposals for a study that would examine how a Vision Zero plan could operate in Indy.

What is Vision Zero?

Vision Zero is a city planning strategy based on the idea that traffic fatalities and severe injuries can be brought to “zero”; that is, completely prevented. Originating in Europe in the 1990s, it’s since been adopted by major U.S. cities like New York and San Francisco.

It differs from other pedestrian safety policies Indianapolis has approved in one major way. It requires major collaboration: both internally, between city departments, and externally, bringing in nonprofits, according to Barth.

“You'll see what really matters is the collaboration and getting everyone on the same page of what you accomplish,” Barth said. “If you have everyone holding the same end of the rope, especially in a resource-constrained environment like we have, you'll start to see progress.”

In practice, that can include changes such as delineated bike lanes, curb extensions and crosswalks. These all work to reduce driver speed and ensure cars can see and stop for pedestrians.

In Indianapolis, this would go hand in hand with the U.S. Department of Transportation’s Safe System Approach, a five-pillared plan that emphasizes roads designed to mitigate human error, safe and responsible driving and post-crash care.

Vision Zero was first mentioned in Indianapolis in a 2016 county Pedestrian Safety Plan. In June 2017, Health by Design held an event to discuss Vision Zero and what it might look like in the city, and Vision Zero implementation was included in a 2018 Indy Moves plan.

But a proposal by that name has never gone into action, even if Indianapolis has implemented some aspects of it. It's unclear why: Kim Irwin, executive director of Health by Design, believes it may have gotten lost in staff turnover, or that politics got in the way. Peer cities who have implemented Vision Zero plans generally have dedicated funding, which Indianapolis has historically lacked, and dedicated staffing for Vision Zero programs, which the city has never committed to.

Barth said he first became aware of Vision Zero in August 2023, when he went to Columbus for a meeting. He'd been trying to assemble a pedestrian safety plan for years, but it wasn't until last year, after that meeting, that he saw traffic safety as a comprehensive issue that a plan like Vision Zero could affect.

A comprehensive plan like Vision Zero requires a change in mindset, said Irwin, whose public health organization focuses on walking, biking and public infrastructure. Cities have to prioritize people over cars.

“There's a real disconnect for people,” Irwin said. “Societally, we've just accepted traffic crashes as the day-to-day life and the cost of doing business, but the toll it takes is tremendous. Literally lives and property, money, time, energy, all of those things.”

Pedestrian deaths in Indianapolis

Eric Holt remembers when the Eagle Creek Greenway extension was put up along 56th Street — more specifically, he remembers how unsafe he felt biking along it.

First, there was no dividers; then, under pressure, the city put up flexible posts. But over the coming months, large stretches of posts were destroyed by drivers again and again.

"Eventually (the city) was like, 'We don't have any more'," Holt said. "'We're out.'"

The city eventually put up more substantial jersey barriers. But it's frustrating to have to fight so hard so that roads can be safe for everyone using them, Holt said.

He runs Indy Pedestrian Safety Crisis, a website and social media platform that tracks pedestrian and cyclist crash reports. Unsafe bike lanes, crosswalks and trails are hurting more and more people every year. Holt said by his count, Indy is on track to have twice as many fatalities this year as it did pre-pandemic.

It's crashes involving children that stay with Holt.

"If we don't do anything more than make our streets safe for kids trying to get to school," Holt said, "then gosh, that should be enough."

Andy Nielsen, a councilor who represents parts of the Eastside and co-author of the Vision Zero proposal, still remembers the deaths of two school-age children before he took office: Hannah Crutchfield, 7, who was struck by a car and killed on her way home from school in 2021, and Sevion Sanford, 6, who was struck multiple times in at least one hit-and-run while waiting for the school bus in 2023.

Indy’s need for safer streets is one of the reasons he chose to run for the council, he said.

Between serious crashes and fatalities, Indianapolis is in a “pedestrian safety crisis,” according to Indianapolis Department of Public Works Director Brandon Herget. Pedestrians and cyclists made up 7% of all fatal and serious Indianapolis crashes in 2021, the most recent year data is available. Compare that to the fewer than 3% of Marion County residents who took a bike, motorcycle or taxi to work that year, and the data signals a problem.

Plus, when looking at fatal crashes alone, that number jumps to 22% of all crashes, driving home how vulnerable pedestrians and cyclists are on Indy's roads. There’s also a long term increase in the number of pedestrian deaths in the Indianapolis area.

There are multiple reasons for this, but Szabo Schmucker at least partially blames road design.

“Designing roads for speed over safety (is the problem),” Szabo Schmucker said. “Vision Zero is for safety over speed.”

DPW is working to address safety issues, but it can only move so fast, department leadership says. Still, over the last few years, Indy has implemented some roadway changes.

In 2022, the city’s then-decade-old Complete Streets policy, which built miles of bike lanes, sidewalks and crosswalks, was updated to add transparency requirements and review processes. Herget cites this policy as an example of the kind of collaboration Vision Zero would require: the Department of Public Works worked hand-in-hand with other departments, such as the Department of Metropolitan Development and the Department of Business and Neighborhood Services, on design standards.

A 2023 City-County Council proposal allowed the Department of Public Works to enforce lower speed limits in greenway crossing zones, where trails intersect streets, and the city will turn several one-way streets into two-way streets over the next few years. And most recently, city councilors are working on a federal grant for bridges at the Monon intersection at 86th, as well as the Nickel Plate Trail.

But for Barth, while these pieces work with Vision Zero, what the proposal authors have planned goes deeper.

“We’re at a point where we need to go to the next level,” Barth said.

What could Vision Zero look like in Indy?

Barth and his coauthors are working on a Vision Zero proposal, with plans to present it at the city-county council’s meeting July 8. The bill will set a timeline goal to see results, create and define an oversight committee to keep efforts on track towards that goal, and set requirements for the first draft of an action plan.

The mayor’s office is “fully behind” a Vision Zero program, provided it’s comprehensive and mindful of budget constraints, Herget said.

Barth hopes to include annual budget allocations in the proposal to set the project up in the long term. He said the amount will depend on what the community determines to be the project's needs and what funding is available. They’re presenting the proposal in July to get it on the books before hearings begin in August for the 2025 city budget.

Financing for a project like this is hard, particularly because of Indiana’s road funding formula.

City leaders have complained for years that Indianapolis faces a financial disadvantage related to road funding: The state provides funding based on miles of road, not taking into account the number of lanes or vehicle traffic. This means even just keeping roads maintained is a constant challenge, and accomplishing a major project like Vision Zero requires collaboration, and an understanding that progress will be step by step.

The city will have to be intentional about their priorities, Barth said. An Indianapolis Vision Zero plan would likely prioritize intersections with multiple fatal crashes in recent years, as well as intersections with high pedestrian traffic on fast-moving streets.

Still, Vision Zero has successfully been implemented in similar-sized cities, regardless of cost.

For example, in Columbus, Ohio, city officials focused city improvement on three areas: crosswalks, speed limits and intersections. With an initial $15 million from gas tax and capital funds, as well as $12 million in federal grant funding, they’ve taken on hundreds of these projects.

Many people involved with the Vision Zero project expressed admiration for Hoboken, New Jersey: As of January 31 of this year, the city has gone seven consecutive years without a traffic-related death. Hoboken implemented a Vision Zero action plan in 2021. Some of their policies look familiar; for example, a right-on-red ban closely mimics a similar policy in Indianapolis’s downtown. Others, such as changing city zoning codes to require bike parking or creating “slow street” zones that prioritize non-drivers, may be more foreign.

Advocates say a key way some cities accomplish this is by leaning into short-term, low-cost fixes like lowering speed limits, improving and installing crosswalks and adding bike lanes.

Vision Zero and Indy’s future

On Tuesday, May 28, the Indianapolis Metropolitan Planning Organization released a request for proposals for a company to complete an Indianapolis Vision Zero study. Interested consultants would research Vision Zero initiatives and best practices from peer cities — for example, Columbus. They’ll also go through federal Safe System objectives, assess how the city is meeting them, set up benchmarks and assign tasks to local agencies.

The contractor would start Aug. 5, days before the city-county budget meeting. Funding for the project comes from a grant from the Indianapolis Metropolitan Planning Organization.

Some people believe action needs to come sooner. Holt said he wants to see short-term plans alongside a long-term plan like Vision Zero, and Szabo Schmuker raised concerns about a potentially years-long planning process.

“The budget’s already baked by the time the study is going to come out, so you're not going to see any meaningful budget allocation until 2026,” Szabo Schmuker said. “Which means we're not going to see any meaningful changes until 2027. We need meaningful changes this budget season.”

But Nielsen said that for a project with this many people collaborating to succeed, policymakers need to be intentional in what he referred to as a “very complicated” process. One sector of government implementing a mandate won’t work for Vision Zero planning.

“While, I wish I could snap my fingers and this problem would be solved tomorrow,” Nielsen said. “I do not believe there is a policy option that would achieve that.”

The proposal is set to be presented at July’s full city-county council meeting. It’s unclear what changes led by a Vision Zero plan might look like in Indianapolis, but advocates and policymakers alike agree: something needs to change to make Indy streets safer.

“It's up to all of us to work together to make sure that everybody gets home safely at the end of the night, that everybody gets to work or to school safely in the morning,” Herget said. “We're going to have to work together to reset our priorities.”

Contact IndyStar politics Pulliam fellow Nadia Scharf at nscharf@indystar.com or follow her on Twitter @nadiaascharf.

This article originally appeared on Indianapolis Star: Can a new infrastructure plan stop Indy's 'pedestrian safety crisis?'